MARGARET THATCHER was hailed last night as the leader who saved Britain and changed the world.

The UK’s first and only woman Prime Minister, who had been frail for many years, died peacefully yesterday after a stroke.

Leaders at home and around the world flocked to pay their respects to the former Premier who took on and beat the unions, defied the IRA, transformed Britain’s economic fortunes, helped bring about the end of the Cold War and sent a Task Force 8,000 miles across the globe to recapture the Falkland Islands.

That unprecedented military intervention made the world take notice of the woman who had been dubbed the Iron Lady.

David Cameron led the tributes, hailing her as a “patriot Prime Minister” with a “lion-hearted love” for Britain.

He cut short an official visit to Madrid and cancelled a planned dinner in Paris with French President Francois Hollande to return home after hearing the news.

Mr Cameron said: “We have lost a great Prime Minister, a great leader and a great Briton. She didn’t just lead our country, she saved our country, and I believe she will go down as the greatest British peacetime Prime Minister.”

Even political opponents acknowledged that Baroness Thatcher, whose leadership defined and dominated not just her generation but those that followed, was a “towering” figure.

Flags flew at half-mast across London

We have lost a great Prime Minister, a great leader and a great Briton.

Prime Minister David Cameron

Her death, aged 87, at London’s Ritz Hotel where she had been cared for since undergoing minor surgery at Christmas, was announced just before lunchtime by her friend and spokesman Lord Bell, on behalf of her twin children, Carol and Sir Mark.

Carol dashed from her home in the Alps to London on Sunday morning to be by her mother’s side before she died.

Buckingham Palace said the Queen, who held weekly private meetings with Lady Thatcher during the Conservative leader’s 11 years as PM, was “sad” to hear the news and would send a private message of sympathy to the family.

Last night Mr Cameron stood outside Number 10 – in the street Lady Thatcher left so tearfully in 1990 after being ousted by her own MPs – to deliver a fuller statement.

“We should never forget that the odds were stacked against her,” he said.

“She was the shopkeeper’s daughter from Grantham who made it to the highest office in the land.

“There were people who said she couldn’t make it, who stood in her way, who said a woman couldn’t lead. She defied them all.”

She would be remembered, Mr Cameron said, for her big political battles in taking on the unions, privatising industry, “unleashing” enterprise, “rescuing” the economy, letting people buy their council homes, winning the Falklands War and helping to win the Cold War.

Prime Minister David Cameron spoke to the nation to praise Thatcher

“Margaret Thatcher took a country that was on its knees and made Britain stand tall again.”

She divided opinion, he admitted, before adding: “But if there is one thing that cuts through all of this, that runs through everything she did, it was her lion-hearted love for this country.

“She was the patriot Prime Minister and she fought for Britain’s interests every single step of the way.

Her impact here and abroad is still remarkable. When people said Britain could not be great again, she proved them wrong. Margaret Thatcher loved this country and served it with all she had.”

Union flags over Downing Street and Westminster were lowered to half mast, floral tributes were left outside Lady Thatcher’s London home, and flowers and a small Union flag appeared by her statue near the door to the Commons chamber.

Parliament is being recalled tomorrow from its Easter break to allow MPs to pay tribute.

The legislative assembly of the Falkland Islands said Baroness Thatcher’s “friendship and support” to the territory would be “sorely missed”.

Assembly member Mike Summers said: “She will be forever remembered for her decisiveness in sending a task force to liberate our home following the Argentine invasion in 1982.”

In the UK, Labour and the Lib Dems both suspended their local election campaigns as a mark of respect.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said that while Labour had disagreed with much of what she did, she had “moved the centre ground of British politics and was a huge figure on the world stage”.

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg saluted her as a “defining figure in modern British politics” and said even her opponents would admit “the strength of her personality and the radicalism of her politics”.

But her death also sparked a sick outpouring of hate from the far Left.